Columcille woke up with a headache. He always work up with a headache in the tunnels, as the air was stale and dank. As he unraveled his long body from the sleeping bag, he fumbled around for his watch. Five, GMT.
Thankfully, his seminary training has included the discipline of memorizing the entire Breviary, as well as the entire Roman Missal, the Pontifical, the Ritual, the Martyrology, the Gradual, and the Antiphonary.
All the priests left in the world had been instructed by Pope Leo XIV to memorize the Scriptures as well.
All priests could work, could provide the sacraments, could say the Mass and preach without any books.
Of course, computer access had ended thirteen years before with the complete collapse of the electronic grid in all the countries, except for a small place in Greenland, where the one government ruled over the world from places hidden in ice and snow.
The beginning of the world-wide glaciation had corresponded with the one nuclear blast which had destroyed one-third of the United States in 2019. The cold had been setting in before that date, but accelerated. Most people over the age of 75 had succumbed in Europe and in Canada, where daily temperatures hovered at minus 20 C. No one knew exactly how many old people had died in America.
Columcille was the last surviving member of his family. His old parents had seen him ordained, and then passed on in the first winter in England after 2019.
The priest went over to a small cupboard which was leaning up against a wall of the cave and took out a large crucifix completely made of wood. It was old, Flemish, 15th century, and had been in Columcille's family since recusant times. as were his entire collection of relics of the saints prior to 1435.
The old house had been taken over by the United Government of Europe in 2020. And, Columcille was glad his parents had not witnessed the sacrilege of the old chapel. The beautiful Sussex home had been one of three places where the Mass had never ended up to this time. A heavy burden on Columcille's heart was the knowledge that Mass would never be said there again.
The young priest knelt on the cold ground, after putting on a heavy anorak, and prayed his morning office.
He would wait for the few faithful in the area to join him for Mass in about 90 minutes. This would give Columcille enough time to say his office and enter into his daily contemplation. He was content to have this time before Mass and before meeting Samuel, the only other priest in the area for house visitations.
No one was allowed to use the name of "Father". No one was allowed to wear blacks or any indication of the priestly vocation. To outsiders, Columcille looked like a workman. His identity card stated that he was a plumber, and Columcille did know how to be a plumber. The other great wise decision of Pope Leo XIV had been that all seminarians would learn a skill, such as plumbing, carpentry, and brick work.
Thankfully, for the Catholics, when the grid disintegrated, all electrical life ended and electrical surveillance also ended, for a time. The government was working on a world-wide grid again, but things were moving slowly.
Columcille finished his prayers. He always kept a long fast from 10 the night before until after Mass. This was also a necessity, as food and water were scarce. Columcille stopped and thanked God again that Great Britain had been spared the nuclear fall-out and that the waters were good to drink.
Such was not the case in much of North and Central America, where all the great rivers and lakes were so heavily polluted that they were labelled the "Death Waters".
The western states died first, all plants, all animal, all people. Then, when the waters of the Great Lakes backed up and returned to fill the great Mississippi River Valley, most of the great cities of the Midwest died as well. Chicago had been completely destroyed in the first tidal waves, followed by all the major cities along the coasts of the other Great Lakes, and those cities in the Mississippi Valley.
Diseases followed the flooding, and what nature did not kill, the looters and murderers who spread out from the ruins of Chicago and the other great cities finished.
If there were any Catholics left in any area north of the Mason-Dixon Line, no one knew for sure.
No one except Samuel, who regularly got dispatches from two priests in America in what was now called The Wasteland.
The Wasteland priests were one Latino from Illinois and one Anglican convert, ordained in the last days before the great blast. Antonio and James worked as a team in the Wasteland and reported back to Samuel, who passed information back to Rome, to Pope Leo XIV, who was in hiding and know only as Anselm, his given name at birth. The Pope was English. It was strange to many that the Pope in these times would be English, as if this had to happen, once even noted in a famous novel now lost to most, as most books were destroyed by law by the United Government of Europe in 2019, just before the nuclear blast.
Anselm, however, even though he was English by birth and name, was of mixed background. His mother had been Scottish. His brother had been named Angus, but he was lost in the riots of 2021, a priest killed by a mob in Paris, where Angus had gone to help the suffering Church there.
Anselm had named all those Catholics killed in Paris in 2021 martyrs. His brother would now help him in a different way.
Columcille rose and went down the long tunnel to the entrance of the cavern. The doorway looked like stone and was amazingly well-constructed not to be noticed. The priest rolled the stone into a secret wall and then saw the small crowd in the morning light waiting. There were about twenty people of all ages coming to hear and participate in Mass.
As they shuffled into the tunnel, Columcille saw Samuel at the end of the small queue. He was gesticulating.
"A word, Columcille, a word." The young priest went over to the mouth of the cave to where the old priest was standing.
"Ann Swallow is dying. I need to go and give her the Last Rites. Can you manage? She is too weak to come here."
Columcille looked worried, "Her husband is not a Catholic. You could be trapped."
"I cannot let her die without the sacraments. She has been so good to us all these years, and she is the last Catholic in her family of faithful people I knew growing up. I need to go."
"God be with you, Samuel. I shall offer up my Mass for both of you."
The old priest left and Columcille rolled the rock back into place. Then, he joined the others in the largest room in the set of caverns, and Mass began.
To be continued....